Description: Home of the Glen Paragliding Club, a consistent and beautiful site to fly, offering a panorama of Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles. In the afternoon, Lions Head heats up and generates a thermic, upslope breeze. Parking is on the back (Capetown side) of Lions Head, then a stiff hike is required up the gravel road and around to the front side. Because of the spire-shape of the peak, the wind diverges around it, causing a strong increase in wind speed at both takeoff sites when it is soarable. The wind is usually crossed from the left (S) at the top site and very strong, and crossed from the right (NW) at the lower site. Dont pioneer a new launch site somewhere else on the mountain.

Now I will try to explain in what type of weather conditions you can paraglide from Lions Head.

1) The South Easterly wind shadow

The South Easterly wind is a low level wind with a reverse wind gradient (stronger on the ground and weaker in altitude).

Generally speaking for a Wind Shadow to form you need the following elements :

We get the formation of a Wind Shadow mostly in the warmest parts of our weather season but it is possible in the middle of Winter as well.

The red lines indicate the direction of the airflow of the South easterly wind. As mentioned before the South Easterly wind is a low level wind and is prevented / blocked from flowing over Lions Head by Table Mountain.

The yellow area is where the wind shadow generally sets up. Looking out towards the ocean from Lions Head a distinct line can be seen on the ocean with a slight differance in colour indicating the presence of a wind shadow.

Paragliding Cape Town SE wind shadow at Lions Head showing warning signs of breaking down

The white cloud that starts to form between Devils Peak and Maclears Beacon on the left and Llandudno and Judas Peak to the right now indicates that there is an increase in the strength of the south easterly wind.

The cold South Easter flowing from False bay starts to condensate as it gets pushed up against the back of Table Mountain. The size of the flyable area in yellow now starts to decrease and whitecaps / white horses can often be seen outside of the yellow area.

Stephan is the owner of Fly Cape Town Paragliding. He is an avid tandem, competition and aerobatics paragliding pilot He loves to share the joy of paragliding flight with anyone who is keen...He is also a qualified paragliding instructor and a paragliding endurance athlete.